As to that, European countries were accustomed to having wars with each other every 20 years or so with only minor border fluctuations resulting. In any case, from the fall of the Roman Empire to Thomas Jefferson was 1,345 years. What is 73 years compared to that?

Yes, they would have felt a feeling. But after they had had a lie down they would have thought a thought, to wit; "How did this most unlikely turn of events come to pass? Ignorant savages have come to our Middle Kingdom from the other side of the planet and arranged our affairs to their liking. We must become like them. But more so."

The rest is history/current events.

China had been in contact with europeans for over 300 years before the opium wars, in which numerous times the europeans (portugal, the dutch, russia) were defeated. The ming dynasty also deliberately adopted and reverse engineered captured portuguese cannon after defeating them, and the qing also used cannon deaigned by jesuits in beijing against the russians at albazin.

The idea that the british suddenly came out of nowhere in 1840 and china thought they were ignorant savages is the product of western psychological projection on china. Chinese knew perfectly well who the british were, the chinese filipino community in manila helped the british seize the city from the spanish in 1762.

By the way, the disparity between china and britain's military technology was not great in the first opium war. Although british musket rifles might have a slightly higher chance of going off than a matchlock, it makes no difference in mass infantry formations. China also had artillery and gingal hand cannons. The two things britain have that china didn't were congreve metal tubed rockets and steam engines. China lost because its soldiers had low morale, and sucked after having not fought a conflict for decades. The small technological disparity was not militarily decisive. And craftsmen made lower quality weapons because of the lax attitude and corruption that spread due to the lack of conflict.

The qing emperors themselves noted the quality of the military, both manchu bannermen and green standard army had declined. The qianlong emperor noted that a hundred years before chinese bannermen were only slightly inferior to manchu bannermen, and in his time, the quality had declined drastically. The manchu bannermen also didn't train at all, their position was hereditary. The green standard army were given inferior weapons and military training in china was very lax.

This was why in the white lotus rebellion of 1794, the qing military's quality declined sharply and it took them ten years to take down a mob of rebels. In 1813 the eight trigrams rebels broke into the forbidden city and almost killed the emperor, since the military sucked so bad after lax training.

The west's military tech suddenly leaped ahead sometimes in the mid 1800s. If you looked at it on a graph, it would be a massive spike, not a gradual hill.

And the qing dynasty would have fell regardless of the opium wars, because the opium war merely exposed the massive decay and corruption which was going on in china's military. The qing dynasty did not collapse because of the west at any rate. It collapsed after a succession of massive rebellions like the taiping, nian, and other massive peasant and ethnic revolts which rocked china, and the need to retake kashgaria from uzbek andijani invaders. These rebellions led to the green standard and manchu banner armies being shuttered aside, and regional armies with local warlords st their helm took their place to crush the rebels.

As a result of these regional armies with local warlords like yuan shikai and zhang zhidong, the qing government's authority in actuallity only consisted of the capital region of zhili, with regional governors paying lip service. The xinhai rebellions delivered the coup de grace, with Yuan shikai and his regional army deciding to force the government to abdicate since they were entirely at his mercy.

It can be said without the west, the form of government after the fall of qing would have been different, it would have been another dynasty, but the qing would have fell around the same time regardless.

The reason chinese wanted to establish a republic was not because they were manhandled by military forces from a republic, but because when chinese people like dr. Sun yatsen toured western republics, they decided that its better to live under a government in which the government can't chop your head off for insulting the emperor. It was about standard of living, not because they thought they wre better militarily, because china could become militarily as strong as a despotic state like the german empire without being a democracy.

And prussian militancy was actually admired by some military figures like cai e more than a jeffersonian republic or constitutional monarchy.

And most importantly of all, the people who made china a republic were a minority, the educated class and the military generals. The vast majority of chinese did not give a flying crows foot about the form of government, illustrated in lu xun's novel "the story of ah q "

No i dont think Westerners are superior to the Chinese. There was a time when Chinese civilisation was scientificaly way ahead of the europeans, the chinese made one mistake, they were so pleased with their pretty porcelin drinking vessels they never got round to inventing glass.

Just for the record, neither the Chinese nor the European/Westerners are objectively either inherently superior or inferior than let say the Inuit or the San people, or for that matter any other Homo sapiens sapiens.

No, there isn't a dominant or superior culture or race on this planet. Time will tell that it's always been trading on each continent who was better. Right now or for the last 300 years the Europeans have been doing pretty well and "Western" civilization is seen as dominant since not only are European countries doing well right now but they have a control on media and such. Soon it might be Chinese or " Eastern" civilization that's doing better then some African countries then middle eastern

China had been in contact with europeans for over 300 years before the opium wars, in which numerous times the europeans (portugal, the dutch, russia) were defeated. The ming dynasty also deliberately adopted and reverse engineered captured portuguese cannon after defeating them, and the qing also used cannon deaigned by jesuits in beijing against the russians at albazin.

The idea that the british suddenly came out of nowhere in 1840 and china thought they were ignorant savages is the product of western psychological projection on china. Chinese knew perfectly well who the british were, the chinese filipino community in manila helped the british seize the city from the spanish in 1762.

By the way, the disparity between china and britain's military technology was not great in the first opium war. Although british musket rifles might have a slightly higher chance of going off than a matchlock, it makes no difference in mass infantry formations. China also had artillery and gingal hand cannons. The two things britain have that china didn't were congreve metal tubed rockets and steam engines. China lost because its soldiers had low morale, and sucked after having not fought a conflict for decades. The small technological disparity was not militarily decisive. And craftsmen made lower quality weapons because of the lax attitude and corruption that spread due to the lack of conflict.

The qing emperors themselves noted the quality of the military, both manchu bannermen and green standard army had declined. The qianlong emperor noted that a hundred years before chinese bannermen were only slightly inferior to manchu bannermen, and in his time, the quality had declined drastically. The manchu bannermen also didn't train at all, their position was hereditary. The green standard army were given inferior weapons and military training in china was very lax.

This was why in the white lotus rebellion of 1794, the qing military's quality declined sharply and it took them ten years to take down a mob of rebels. In 1813 the eight trigrams rebels broke into the forbidden city and almost killed the emperor, since the military sucked so bad after lax training.

The west's military tech suddenly leaped ahead sometimes in the mid 1800s. If you looked at it on a graph, it would be a massive spike, not a gradual hill.

And the qing dynasty would have fell regardless of the opium wars, because the opium war merely exposed the massive decay and corruption which was going on in china's military. The qing dynasty did not collapse because of the west at any rate. It collapsed after a succession of massive rebellions like the taiping, nian, and other massive peasant and ethnic revolts which rocked china, and the need to retake kashgaria from uzbek andijani invaders. These rebellions led to the green standard and manchu banner armies being shuttered aside, and regional armies with local warlords st their helm took their place to crush the rebels.

As a result of these regional armies with local warlords like yuan shikai and zhang zhidong, the qing government's authority in actuallity only consisted of the capital region of zhili, with regional governors paying lip service. The xinhai rebellions delivered the coup de grace, with Yuan shikai and his regional army deciding to force the government to abdicate since they were entirely at his mercy.

It can be said without the west, the form of government after the fall of qing would have been different, it would have been another dynasty, but the qing would have fell around the same time regardless.

The reason chinese wanted to establish a republic was not because they were manhandled by military forces from a republic, but because when chinese people like dr. Sun yatsen toured western republics, they decided that its better to live under a government in which the government can't chop your head off for insulting the emperor. It was about standard of living, not because they thought they wre better militarily, because china could become militarily as strong as a despotic state like the german empire without being a democracy.

And prussian militancy was actually admired by some military figures like cai e more than a jeffersonian republic or constitutional monarchy.

And most importantly of all, the people who made china a republic were a minority, the educated class and the military generals. The vast majority of chinese did not give a flying crows foot about the form of government, illustrated in lu xun's novel "the story of ah q "

Doctor Sun not only toured western nations he was in fact an American citizen. I often play trivia games with my students and one of the questions I frequently pose is, Who is the most important American citizen born in China?

After constant dutch raiding and pillaging of chinese ships in the 1620s in order to force china to trade with them occupying a base on the pescadores, they were defeated and forced to agree to china's terms to agree to trade- they vacated their fort on the pescadores and moved to taiwan which was china's original demand. Later they were expelled from taiwan in 1662.